From the horse-drawn plough to mechanisation, new technologies have boosted agricultural productivity throughout history. Now, digital advances promise to unlock yet more growth\u00a0\u2014\u00a0but without the proper infrastructure to implement them, Europe risks falling behind .\u00a0<\/p>\n
The European Commission\u2019s plan to ensure full access to high-speed internet by 2030, known as Europe\u2019s Digital Decade<\/a>, aims to close the connectivity gap between urban and rural areas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This year\u2019s progress report<\/a>, published in June, shows that just 61.9% of rural areas had access to fixed Very High-Capacity Networks (VHCN) capable of supporting next-generation services in 2024, compared to 82.5% overall. For 5G mobile networks, coverage reached 79.6% of rural areas compared to 94.3% overall.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s been calculated that, for example, the fibre targets would be reached by 2050 if we keep the current pace, so obviously they need to pick up the speed,\u201d Monty Aal, a policy analyst at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), told The Parliament.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n For Europe to fully deploy a new wave of agricultural technologies, from drone crop monitoring to precision pesticide spraying, these metrics will have to improve.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s not just for the rural community and for having general access to the internet,\u201d Martyn Griffiths, chair of the digital policy team at CropLife Europe, told The Parliament.\u202f\u201cIt’s very important for new farming tools.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Protecting crops, devouring admin\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n Crop protection is an area with significant growth potential. With good connectivity, farmers can use drones to map and assess large fields in minutes, a job previously done on foot.\u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n With the assessment done, GPS-guided sprayers can go to work, automatically applying the right amount of fertiliser or pesticide to each plant based on real-time growth data. This maximises crop output, while limiting waste and environmental damage. The tools can also reach areas that are difficult to access on foot, further boosting productivity.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis means that the pesticide use and risk is decreased because you’re doing it only in the places where it’s needed and only for the weeds that are there,\u201d Anika Gatt Seretny, senior communications manager at CropLife Europe, told The Parliament.\u00a0<\/p>\n Big data tools can reduce the administrative burden on farmers, which has grown steadily over the years as reporting requirements have increased, particularly around\u00a0environmental factors. While the European Union is now belatedly trying to simplify regulatory requirements across all sectors of the economy, automation will help farmers spend more time growing crops and less time filling in forms.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n CropLife Europe has developed a tool called Agriguide, which helps farmers fulfil their legal requirement to document pesticide usage. The tool monitors the amount of pesticides used by connected sprayers and uploads this data to a central hub, from where it can be sent directly to the relevant regulators.\u00a0<\/p>\n Connectivity needed to overcome cost concerns\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite the potential of these technologies, most farmers in Europe have limited working capital and will be reluctant to make big investments without a guarantee that they will be able to use such tools to their full capacity. Poor broadband and wireless internet can limit these devices\u2019 interoperability and cause delays in uploading data.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFarmers are willing to move to the digital tools, if it supports their daily operations,\u201d said Griffiths.\u00a0But he noted that often\u00a0requires a hefty investment in hardware. \u201cFarmers…might not have a modern tractor with a modern sprayer because sprayers are expensive, but if they have a smartphone and a GPS enabled tractor this can support [the] use of new digital tools.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Modern tractors are likely to set farmers back anywhere between \u20ac75,000 to nearly \u20ac500,000 according to<\/a> the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Manufacturer\u2019s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt may be that in smaller rural areas that farmers need to share equipment because new technology is expensive,\u201d Griffiths added.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n For Aal, this financial burden on farmers is linked to a long-term neglect of rural areas. \u201cI don’t think the digital divide exists in a kind of vacuum. It’s layered onto many other economic divides that exist across the EU,\u201d he said.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n Linking telecoms to incentives\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n EU policymakers will also need to consider the investment incentives faced by internet providers\u00a0tasked with delivering the envisioned full connectivity, experts say.\u00a0Like postal services, internet providers make less of a return on their investments in rural areas than in densely populated cities. But unlike most postal services, they are private companies with a profit motive.\u00a0<\/p>\n Telecom providers \u201cneed to be incentivised or obliged to make those investments\u2026 in a way that is not financially to their detriment,\u201d said Aal, adding that the EU would need to work with regional and local governments to find the right recipe.\u00a0<\/p>\n The EU has provided some public funding to encourage businesses to invest. In Latvia, one of the EU member states with the lowest access to VHCN and broadband<\/a>, \u20ac16.5 million<\/a> of the country\u2019s EU Recovery and Resilience funds have been channelled to deploy high-speed broadband and further improve digital infrastructure.\u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n Finland codified the Digital Decade targets into its national law and recognised broadband access as a universal right, something Aal believes the EU must also do to get member states to take the targets seriously. Finland now has full 5G coverage<\/a> but still tracks the EU average in access to VHCN\u2019s, with 82% of the population connected.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n Further improvements could breathe some much-needed competitiveness into Europe\u2019s rural economy, Aal said. \u201cWe should not ignore the potential for economic development that good connectivity brings, especially in regions that are poor and struggle to develop economically.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n